- The clones have the same gear as the original, which seems reasonable at first glance. But this includes things like exploding tags and smoke grenades, and the duplicates work fine despite being some kind of chakra construct.
- Worse, special items like Samehada or the Kusanagi get duplicated too, and the duplicates have all the abilities of the original.
- Worse yet, when Naruto clones himself the duplicates are still linked to the Kyuubi. Apparently even that fancy seal Minato used to seal it can be cloned.
So if it's that easy to create objects out of chakra, why didn't Hidden Mist research a jutsu that just created duplicates of their fancy swords so all their jonin could have them? The same goes for most other kinds of gear, or money (if you don't mind cheating people).
One clue seems to be that you can only copy something you already have. Itachi can make Shadow Clones with Sharingan eyes because he has them himself, but Orochimaru can't because he doesn't. This principle seems to apply to a lot of other jutsu as well, like when Kiba combines with his dog to turn into a giant two-headed wolf. So maybe ninja have no idea how to actually make anything complex directly, they just make distorted copies of things they already have.
Hmm.
So can they make partial copies? Copy some attributes of the original but not others? Copy something thats a few feet away? Or a few dozen feet, or a few hundred? How about something they know about but don't have with them? Lots of interesting questions there.
Needless to say this is actually going to matter in Indomitable, since Naruto's going to have clones looking for more angles to exploit all the way up to the end. Thoughts?
Actually, things are even stranger than you imagine. If you look at things from the most basic level, you have to wonder why Naruto's shadow clones show up wearing clothing rather than being stark naked. If you look closer, you start wondering how they manage to fight at all. After all, if punching a shadow clone disrupts it, then why isn't a shadow clone disrupted by punching someone else? Similar pressure is being exerted onto a small area in both examples.
ReplyDeleteMy explanation is loosely based upon a hodgepodge of mysticism from India and RPG mechanics. Indian mystic philosophy indicates that the world as we know it is an illusion and that enlightenment allows us to see past this lie to the truth of reality. Using this paradigm, people are not actually flesh and blood, they are ideas. Using jutsu involves manipulating the underlying idea rather than the flesh. Thus, clones carry equipment because ninja view their equipment as an extension of themselves (psychological testing shows that humans very easily extend their self image to tools that they are utilizing). Striking a clone disrupts it because people expect injury to inflict harm, and the clone's limited reality renders it so susceptible to harm that injury destroys them. On the other hand, people do not expect that punching someone else will harm themselves, so attacks don't result in self-destruction.
Disturbingly, the implication of the above hypothesis is that if your will is strong enough and you are enlightened enough to learn how, you can attack an opponent's fundamental nature (rather than their physical incarnation), and force them to become whatever you will them to be.
You have hit upon an idea that I had for a story, years ago, unfortunately while trying to write it I discovered that I suck as a writer.
ReplyDeleteI’ve always thought that they underused the clone tech’s potential, I’ve thought from the very first episode that Naruto could have used the SC to increase his training or to make shadow replicas of anything, such as kunai, weapons, clothing, tools, houses, boats.
Basically I thought how the clone tech worked was that the person used some sort of Chakra scanner to scan an object down to the atomic level {why down to the atomic level you ask, because the Byakugan can see microscopic stuff such as the Chakra Pathway System something that is as small as veins and some Hyuga such as Neji can see even smaller stuff such as the Chakra points so if Neji couldn’t tell the difference between Naruto and his clones then the clones had to be copied on an even finer scale the biology, which brings us down to molecular level which is made up of atoms.} then creates a duplicate of the object scanned by some sort of medium earth, mud, fire, shadows, or even people{Itachi, Kisame, First Hokage, Second Hokage} and in the case of cloned people or animals the person implants a copy of their own consciousness into the clone.
Just to give you a hint as to some of the capabilities that I’ve thought up for the clone tech which they nor you have used yet, I’ll tell you some of them.
Everyone knows you can duplicate tools and weapons, but what about electronics, radios, TV’s, and even computers {with the computers I’ve always imagined that they could also implant a copy of their consciousness and get the benefit of the computers calculating powers}. Just imagine creating a copy of a Super Computer with your mind controlling it from the inside as it runs simulations after simulations.
Since they’ve shown them being able to duplicate Seals I saw no reason why they couldn’t use that instead of having to waste time writing the seals down, plus if you didn’t know the Seal you could always make a Shadow Copy of it and still use it {such as Tsunade’s Creation Rebirth seal}.
Probably what most people would think of as my most powerful idea was to let Naruto figure out how to copy someone else’s body, Sasuke, Hinata, the Bone Pulse guy and implant his own consciousness into the clone’s thereby giving him their Bloodline limits. Eventually learning how to mix and match cloned objects such as Naruto’s body with one Byakugan and one Sharingan eye along with the Dead pulse bone, Jugo’s curse seal, Suigetsu’s ability to turn to water, Shikamaru’s Shadow nature type {or different clones with different nature types, water, fire, or the others}and Shino’s bugs under his control.
His using clones to help him do techniques that are too complex for him to do on his own such as Rasengan and later on his more advanced Wind Rasengan {well just how complex or a technique could he do if he used say ten clones, twenty, fifty, a hundred, five hundred, two thousand clones}. One clone helping him allowed him to do something as advanced as the Rasengan, two clones let him do the wind Rasengan something too advanced for the Forth Hokage or Kakashi. Then have Naruto do the same things for his friends he creates a clone of himself for each of them and have that clone provide the chakra so his friends can make Shadow Clones as well.
Since my story idea wasn’t just about Naruto becoming powerful but also Naruto helping his friends the Konoha Twelve and later the Sand Siblings become powerful as well, just imagine Sakura making a couple of Supercomputers, with a Naruto Chakra Station’s help, maybe twelve linked together and running medical simulations to better understand biology and how to manipulate it or to make Genjutsu’s more in depth and more powerful. {Now imagine Sakura using modified Clones of little parasites {kind of like Deidara’s C4 except for healing not blowing up} with her mind in control, sending them into patients to heal them from the inside.
lol, yeah, clone techniques are HaXX.
ReplyDeleteMy own ideas when i ws thinking baout making naruto fanfiction was to have sakura working on pinpointing clone location when they appear.
Like, making a explosive clone appear a few miles away when someone is sleeping, or even being able to clone/henge into things like ants and so on.
After all ,we do see Naruto's clone appearing a bit further, and i could see someone like sakura using that in order to bypass sealed doors at first, and then as an assassination technique.
For the "sealed doors", i thought about making a genin/chunin library, with the chunin part locked off (with chakra disruptor on the door to cancel henges and so on, but if you make a clone appear directly on the other side of the wall...).
------So if it's that easy to create objects out of chakra, why didn't Hidden Mist research a jutsu that just created duplicates of their fancy swords so all their jonin could have them? The same goes for most other kinds of gear, or money (if you don't mind cheating people)------
ReplyDeleteThe most logical limitations are degree of familiarity and chakra requirements.
Degree of familiarity - If you don't have the item on hand, then you probably need to know exactly what it is comprised of and how it is put together. There might also be a degree of skill involved. So to duplicate the Kusanagi (without having it on hand) you would need to (1)know what metals it is composed of, (2)be able to shape those metals with the skill needed to get a masterwork sword (rather than a hunk of metal), and (3)know how to duplicate the seals (or whatever) that give it its unique powers.
Chakra requirements - The energy required for cloned items to perform unique functions has to be included in the cost of cloning the item. While it seems that regular items have little chakra cost, items with special functions probably have a much higher cost. (Example: the chakra cost of cloning an explosive tag = cost of cloning a scroll + cost of creating the explosion). By this rekoning, a ninja has no net gain from cloning items. They are paying in chakra for the items they duplicate.
Now, the Naruto-verse isn't known for its adherance to logic, so the above rules may or may not apply, but those are the primary limitations I can think of.
On the last point (money and other equipment), these probably are cloned by those with sufficient chakra reserves. Rarely do we see high-level traveling ninja wearing packs. While they might carry stuff in storage scrolls, some probably just create their common equipment as needed. A tent and sleeping pad might be needed for times when they can't spare the chakra, but rarely used equipment could be summoned on demand. It is possible that the only thing a powerful ninja would really need to carry is food.
Money would be a slightly differenty matter. This could be one reason ninja are required to wear headbands. Cheat someone, and it reflects on your village. Ninjas from respectable villages have their money taken without question, others are treated with suspicion, raised prices to compensate for the risk of fraud, or perhaps even turned away entirely.
------Needless to say this is actually going to matter in Indomitable, since Naruto's going to have clones looking for more angles to exploit all the way up to the end. Thoughts?------
ReplyDeleteCloning+henge is open to all sorts of abuse. Here's a few ideas, though Naruto would need to be careful how he uses them. Wouldn't want to make the situation worse than it already is.
- When in a fight, clone your enemies. Make it impossible for them to tell friend from foe. Clone your friends as well. If you can sneak your team out of the combat zone, you can have your enemies waste their efforts on clones, and maybe on each other. Then your team can hit them when they are tired.
- Character assassination. Send henged clones out to ruin your enemies reputation and credit. If you can get away with it, run up large debts in their name. Use the proceeds to fund your own efforts. (Major banks, casinos, and other larger places might have ways to detect henges, but there's still a lot of mischief you can do with this.) Have 'Itachi' and 'Kisame' perform a mission at a major festival that makes them look like the Keystone Kops. Have 'Deidara' appear at an art show and confess that all of his creations are cheap copies of other people's work. Have 'Hidan' go about preaching pacifism. Get creative. They're out to kill you anyway, give them some preemptive revenge.
- Make your enemy also be your enemy's enemy. Have pairs of clones in Akatsuki cloaks make mysterious journeys through Iwagakure. Have them visit areas near important fortifications and facilities. Be sure to dispel them if anyone gets too close. Make the Tsuchikage completely paranoid about their intentions. Repeat in Sound and Mist if necessary.
------Needless to say this is actually going to matter in Indomitable, since Naruto's going to have clones looking for more angles to exploit all the way up to the end. Thoughts?------
ReplyDelete- What about a partial clone? As in cloning a specific body part? Presumably the whole only-one-hp thing is a result of disruptions in the chakra flow of the clones causing the constructs to collapse, but what about chakra constructs directly linked to Naruto's own, uninterrupted chakra network? He would be able to "clone" damaged body parts as soon as he was wounded, in essence, instant regeneration beyond even Naruto's original. In fact, this is probably the concept behind the Kyuubi's original healing factor - infinite chakra+energy->matter conversion=total invulnerability.
- If shadow clones are so complete that their chakra networks are copied, what about their other internal processes, in particular the digestive system? How long would a clone have to survive and how much would it have to eat before it completely replaced the original "chakra construct" body parts with *actual* flesh and blood constructed from the food it consumed? With Naruto's metabolism I'm guessing the answer is "not very".
- Shadow clones appear a short distance away from the user - this was best demonstrated by the times Naruto uses the tajuu variant, filling whole clearings in an instant. What if a clone sacrificed itself, consuming all its chakra to cast... kage bunshin, replacing itself with an identical clone a few feet to the side? And repeated. Over and over again. In essence this would be a short-range teleportation technique limited only by the chakra wasted between each jump, but it would be almost completely unpredictable.
- How "tangible" do the clones have to be? I think in your story you have Naruto cloning memories to send to his other clones - how sapient can these non-physical clones be? I imagine a living genjutsu would be horribly, horribly overpowered...
- A living, breathing body with its own chakra network must be far harder to create than say, mass quantities of one specific simple molecule. Like water. He wouldn't even have to know any water techniques, just create so much water that everything in the room drowns.
- Naruto can fill a good sized portion of a forest with clones. In this story he can make the clones explode. If he's ever in a situation were he really doesn't care about collateral damage...
- Naruto can henge clones into weapons even in canon. Are the weapon-clones still sapient? Henge seems to be more-or-less instantaneous, so a "kunai" that suddenly becomes a katana or a spear sounds like it would be pretty close to an instant-kill...
- Henge'd spies, of course (this one's obvious). If they're hit hard enough to disrupt the henge than the clone would be dispelled - you keep any info gained, but your enemies have no idea who you are.
I've always assumed it was an intentional handwave. You can't clone something you don't have, because a fundamental part of the Clone technique is that it creates an exact clone of you.
ReplyDeleteThis makes quite a lot of sense when you take into account that Naruto characters rarely, if ever, seem to have any real understanding of how their Jutsu work on a fundamental level. They can shape chakra, yes, but that's not really any more of an explanation than magic 'Shaping arcane forces'. When they shape Chakra it effects the world in precise ways; creating an exact clone who has your exact equipment is simply part of the technique. You'd likely have to reverse engineer a clone technique to make it only do a partial copy, since that isn't what it was created to do.
You're overthinking this, I do believe. Obviously Kishimoto didn't think about things like this when he thought it up. Besides, didn't one of the very first chapters say that Shadow Clones were real flesh and blood?(despite the fact that it only takes one hit to dispel) It doesn't make any logical sense, of course, but its fiction for a reason. The laws of physics and basic logic need not apply.
ReplyDeleteCloning weapons huh? I have one thing to say about that.
ReplyDeleteUnlimited Blade Works
One other small thing is only the Leaf would be able to do that. The shadow clone is a speacal clone limited to only the leaf village. Water clone's are only at 10% of the orignil and sand clones are more or less just sand in human shape. They do not say anything about mud clones though but I think that was a leaf one also (Orochi may have taught sound it.) The beast one is also a leaf one.
ReplyDeleteI assumed the whole reason there was a link to the kyuubi was that Naruto always has a bit of its chakra in his own. Thus, the clones all contain a little bit of the kyuubi's body, which it can sometimes take control of.
ReplyDeleteWhile this is a bit off topic, I would like to point out that a Kage Bunshin actually can take a hit. In the bell test Naruto got into a fight with his clones. Despite this not a single one of them dispersed until one clone had the genius idea for Naruto to simply end the technique. Then during the first fight against Zabuza, when Naruto charged in most of his clones were dispersed but the clone that passed the henged Fuma Shuriken certainly did not disperse from the attack it just endured. Finally in the Chuunin Exam finals Naruto's clone was able to withstand a direct attack from Neji for at least a second. If the Kage Bunshin clone could only take one hit of damage it would never have been able to do any of this.
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ReplyDeleteFirst poster, there are already attacks that attack a person at their fundamental being. The Kurama clan (usually classified as a filler arc) has a kekigenkai that lets them make illusions that have physical effects, unless the target is unconscious. This also protects their affects. An example is the illusion of a lightning strike on the Hokage Tower resulting in it being set on fire.
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- If shadow clones are so complete that their chakra networks are copied, what about their other internal processes, in particular the digestive system? How long would a clone have to survive and how much would it have to eat before it completely replaced the original "chakra construct" body parts with *actual* flesh and blood constructed from the food it consumed? With Naruto's metabolism I'm guessing the answer is "not very".
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As was shown during team assignment, when Naruto replaced Sasuke and almost got Sakura to kiss him, yes, the digestive stuff does copy over, too. Very good point about replacing the energy stuff with real stuff.
As far as the 'one-hit rule' yeah, I'm figuring it's lethal damage. Or maybe just for dramatic effect.
As far as my contribution, since Naruto's version of the henge allows him to change his clone's size, what about making them very small and getting the opponent to inhale them? Release the henge and you get an effect like what happened to that snake in the Forest of Death.
I made a One-shot with the concept of giant clones on FFN and have it and chat here: http://z14.invisionfree.com/The_Fanfiction_Forum/index.php?showtopic=15443&hl=
ReplyDeleteFeel free to use the idea. but S-ranks would probably pop 20' clones fast, but getting hit by one would be nasty. A 40' clone would take damage better but takes massive chakra to make and without pulling on Kyuubi I don't think Naruto could do it. Of course none of the giant clones will work with flesh and blood limitations rather than as souped up chakra constructs.